• From: zerone
  • Registered: 2004-08-16

Topic: "White House, Capitol Briefly Evacuated"

heres a news item i saw on Yahoo! this morning that caught my eye
i have added a few little pieces of emphasis:

White House, Capitol Briefly Evacuated 6 minutes ago

[NOTICE THAT THERE IS NOT AN AUTHOR TO THIS ARTICLE GIVEN.... hmmmmm.....? -zonabi]


WASHINGTON - The U.S. Capitol and White House were briefly evacuated Wednesday after a small plane entered restricted airspace over the city. Security officials in several other government buildings, including the     Treasury Department and the     U.S. Supreme Court, ordered people to safer locations.


    President Bush was away from the White House, biking at a Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, Md. Congressional leaders were moved from the Capitol.

A small Cessna aircraft breached the security zone over Washington, several law enforcement officials said, prompting alerts across the city. The plane was approached by a fighter aircraft and veered away, according to a     Federal Aviation Administration official speaking on condition of anonymity.

But in the meantime, armed security officers raced through the Capitol shouting for people to leave. "This is not a drill," guards shouted as they moved people away from the building.

Sen. Richard Shelby (news, bio, voting record), R-Ala., was on the Senate floor when police told him they needed to evacuate. "They said get out of here, so I ran. There's no joking about this kind of stuff," Shelby said.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert was on the House floor talking to members when the evacuation siren went off. He left quickly with his security detail.

Two large black armored SUVs often used by House and Senate leaders sped away from the Capitol as a military jet flew overhead.

"People were surprised. I was surprised," said Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, who was on the House floor when the evacuation began. "There was so much commotion in the gallery. People were yelling in the gallery. We thought something had happened in the gallery, and then the alarm came to evacuate."

Sarah Little, an aide to Sen. Pat Roberts (news, bio, voting record), R-Kan. said the order to evacuate came over the special pager devices that every congressional office has. "They said ... there is an imminent aircraft threat," she said.

The incident sparked a flurry of emergency activity throughout the capital, which was targeted on Sept. 11, 2001 and has been under a heightened state of alert since then.

Washington's Reagan National Airport has been closed to general aviation since the Sept. 11 attacks. In the 3 1/2 years since then, hundreds of small planes have flown within the restricted airspace around the capital – a 15 3/4-mile radius around the Washington Monument.

However, it's rare for fighter jets to be scrambled.

In the most dramatic incident since the Sept. 11 attacks, thousands of people fled the Capitol, packed with members of Congress and other dignitaries, when a plane flew into the restricted air space just before the funeral procession for President     Ronald Reagan last June.

A communications breakdown led federal officials to believe the plane might be targeting the Capitol, but it turned out to be carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who had been cleared to fly into the area.

link (for now)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/capital

---------------------------

any1 else get the feeling of staged events ?

"...i was taken by the hand, from the ocean to the sand..."
nitin sawhney - 'eastern eyes'

zonabi's Website

  • lyra
  • lyra
  • Naked Emperor Pointer Outer
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  • From: my own private idaho
  • Registered: 2004-03-25

Re: "White House, Capitol Briefly Evacuated"

God, don't even get me started about this nonsense.  I had to listen to the hyped up drama on CNN while I was trying to eat my lunch.  Synchronistically, I pulled out my Stuart Wilde book that I was in the middle of reading ("Whispering Winds of Change") to find that the chapter I'm on is called "The Anatomy of a Decent Crisis."  It's all about manufactured crisis so the government can implement more control and instill more fear.   Great timing!  wink

But on CNN this whole thing was all breathlessly amped up.  They were literally trying to instill fear in people, get everybody all worked up and emotional.  It was stupid.  I got so annoyed I shoved my book back in my bag and ended my lunch early.   I'd rather be back at the front desk than listen to that nonsense.   Seriously, if they reacted that way now, when nothing is happening, can't wait to see how it'll be when something actually does happen.

Another part of the nonsense that annoyed me was how the announcers were reiterating over and over how the small plane was flying into restricted airspace, and it's procedure to scramble jets when that happens, because it's not allowed........I was like, "Oh yeah??   Then where were the scrambled jets on 9/11, huh?   Oh wait....don't ask THAT question!  That'll open up a can of worms!!" 

grrr.

"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Holy shit ... what a ride!"  - Anonymous
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"I get by with a little help from my (higher density) friends."
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lyra's Website

  • Registered: 2005-02-08

Re: "White House, Capitol Briefly Evacuated"

If it wasn't staged then it's surely very embarassing, very much like when Mathias Rust flew a Cessna into the Soviet Union and landed it on Red Square in front of the Kremlin on May 28, 1987 during the height of the cold war. BTW, I also think I heard that Bush wasn't ever aware of the "threat" until after it was all over. Maybe that's a revealing tidbit.